


Badbrain Days (And Cuboids That Help)

by The_Secret_Life_Of_Tea



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (only a bit though) - Freeform, Autism, Autistic Character, Chronic Pain, Neurodiversity, Other, The Master Actually Cares, internalized ableism, neurodivergent character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:01:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23463613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Secret_Life_Of_Tea/pseuds/The_Secret_Life_Of_Tea
Summary: The Doctor is having a hard time. The Master contemplates.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/The Master (Simm)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 89





	Badbrain Days (And Cuboids That Help)

**Author's Note:**

> Autistic!Who is my favorite, as anyone knows. I should also think of making a ficlet with Dwahan!Master........

Sometimes it was all too much. 

The drums. The almost-feeling of his brains knocking together with the force of it. It hurt worse than—than a white-point star buried in his skull.

The Doctor sometimes had badbrain days too. Was there shame in it? Yes, the Master argued. It shouldn’t happen. They were too... too smart, too strong, for all that.

But when those days came around, he felt powerless. So did they.

It was one of those days today.

The Master had been reading more and more about various neurological differences in humans. Interestingly (or it would be interesting if if weren’t so in-character), he couldn’t find anything on neurological variations in Gallifreyans. No doubt there was documentation, perhaps carefully hidden away, somewhere in the archives... maybe one day he would even find them among other data.

He’d noticed that the Doctor’s personality and way of being aligned with various neurodivergences. He’d exploited more than some of their weaknesses in the past, toying with their sensory systems and more to gain the upper hand. 

But now, with them sat on the floor of the console room, hands clasped over their ears and eyes shut tightly, the Master could not help but feel a surge of sympathy. They looked completely miserable.

He reached out hesitantly with his mind. His fingers tingled with the thrill of their vulnerability, itched to test it, stretch it out and look through the windowpane-thin of their pain. But no—he couldn’t do that, not today, not when he was already functioning below his full capacity (but when did he ever function at full capacity since they’d captured him?)

‘What’s got you going today?’ He asked gruffly through their mindlink. They shuddered, full-bodied.

‘Hurts.’

‘What hurts?’

They sent a picture of fishing wire cutting through the skin of a plum. What they were trying to convey, he figured, was the slicing pain of their sensory system. Something had fought its way through their defenses and settled in beneath their skin like a lurking infection. 

‘I thought this might help.’ The Master withdrew something from his pocket, setting it within reach. It was a small, grey cuboid, with protrusions on each side of it. ‘Give it a go.’

He watched, impatience growing in his gut, as the Doctor uncurled themself from their tensed position and touched warily at the little object. ‘It’s not a bomb. It won’t take your hand off.’

They huffed a surprised noise, something like a laugh, and scooped the cube up. It was what was colloquially called a “stim toy”. The Master had seen it and immediately requested the TARDIS create one. Well, he’d demanded, and she’d made him say please, which was ridiculous, but the cube, he hoped, would be worth the indignity.

He recalled the way they twiddled with their hair in moments of distress or joy or boredom, how they always had their hands on everything. 

A delighted sound caught him from his musings; he looked over to the Doctor, who was clicking the cube furiously. That same happy croon bubbled up from their throat to their lips. They opened the mindlink again, showing the Master a pillow bathed in sunbeams. Comfort. Happiness. Relief.

The Master wouldn’t admit to his smile later on over a pot of tea, but the Doctor swore up and down (with their signature cheeky grin) that he had indeed, the big ol’d softie, and—

And the knife driven into the kitchen table shut them up for the rest of their teatime.

(But not for the rest of the day.)


End file.
